The Angryface Monster

I know I seem like all sweetness and light and fairy ponies and purple sunshine and all that crap most of the time.

WTF do you want, pinkie?

But sometimes I feel – less than that. Sometimes I feel sad. Other times I feel ANGRY. Murderous even. I’ve been known to throw steel toed boots. Yeah, I know, hard core there. I’m just tired, and tired of being tired, and tired of being mixed up, and tired of people not really listening to me, or listening but not really. Like what do I have to do to get people to take notice?

Here’s an idea.

Like, seriously, this whole adulthood thing? It sucks. No one tells you that as a kid. But it does. I mean, sure, there are some fun things like not going to public school anymore and how you can NOT do the laundry if you don’t feel like it but then you have no clothes, so there are all these consequences and they SUCK. And while there’s no school, you still have to go to a job or something stupid like that, and chances are, your job SUCKS too if only cause they make you do work and you feel like your soul just got sucked out through a silly straw. You no longer care about changing the world or advancing you just want to get paid and have people LEAVE YOU THE FUCK ALONE.

But do they? No. They keep on existing and stuff, and it’s irritating. And it’s long. Eight hours of your day. Day after day after month after year after the REST OF YOUR LIFE until you retire but wait you can’t no you will die at your desk bwahahahahaha.

After 5 billion hours of work, the ancient librarian heals over and dies of boredom.

But it’s not that bad. I mean, you aren’t in Africa where there’s no food. You have lots of food – that you can eat and eat and eat until you weigh 600 pounds which they say is bad for you, but hey, you can weigh almost nothing and on that BMI chart (Bullshit Measurement by Idiots) still be overweight. Not sure what that means for the ones who really are 600 pounds. Maybe they just spontaneously combust.

And you talk to peeps and they are all “Well don’t change anything” or “You aren’t supposed to be happy” or “kids in Africa have no Happy Meals” or “What about my wart, huh?” or “I’m watching the 10th spin off of Dudes with Cars”. And then you wonder – is this as good as it gets? And you feel sad. But really it’s not sad. It’s anger, bottled up, at all those people who don’t listen, and tell you to go back to your box. And it looks something like this.

Alice channeling her inner demonic toddler

I call him the Angryface Monster, and he is my little friend. He kills for me in my daydreams and I love him forever and ever AMEN. Do you guys have an Angryface Monster? Do you ever let it out? Was it violent? Did you get even with the friend, spouse, boss, garbage can, whatever? Let me know in the comments below. Mr. Angryface Monster and I will wait. In the shadows. Right behind you.

Unless I let out the monster and then I go to jail and stuff. Then I’ll be there. You can be my one phone call!

Love and kisses,

Alice

P.S. I have considered possibly trying to move from full time at an academic library to part time back at the public library (my evil former boss retired – DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD) but it is much less money and back on crappy insurance but there is more time and maybe a little more purpose but you have to suck it up and work for minimum with teens and not sure I want to do that or not. Any of you faced a choice like this?

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51 responses

This is why we write, right? Take all that frustration and confusion and fatigue and weave it into a blog post (like this), or an article, or a novel, or a non-fiction book. You have such a wonderful strong writing voice. I think you’d create a brilliant narrator in a novel. I believe I told you about the book “The Woman Upstairs,” and that the narrator’s voice reminded me of you. Not the story line, but just the way the female protagonist described the world, at least how she saw it. Very raw and honest.

I do write a lot of fiction, but that whole finishing thing . . . it’s tough. And the time and the random other excuses. I like to think I’d have more time to write if I was part time, but it’s not necessarily true since you don’t always know when you’ll have the muse to write or not. Etc.

That’s a good point. I don’t get paid that much here, but it’s way more than I did there. And there’s all those money worries. But also what if the other place is no better and I’ve just lost out on what I had? What if? Etc.

Part of your problem Alice is that violent expressions of anger are not encouraged in your workplace. Ha! I used to work in a large commercial warehouse and one summer the manager hired his son part time. The son was the laziest, most irresponsible, careless employee I’d ever seen. Numerous complaints were made to the manager and he “spoke” to his son, but nothing changed. In that environment, a careless employee can cause injury or death to other employees (like pushing a pallet too far into a 30’rack so that the one on the far side is dumped out on top of whoever is over there. Or entering a blind corner with a forklift while speeding and driving on the wrong side of the travel lane.) So, about 5 emplyees got together, they grabbed the prodigal son, shrink wrapped him to a pallet and the lifted the pallet with a forklift 35 feet to the ceiling under a heating fan. They parked him there while they went about their shift. When the next shift came in and found him and let him down, he left and never came back.

See, that’s the kind of job you need,Alice – allowing you to express your feelings and free your soul. Very cathartic.

Usually when I get good and pissed, I just yell at Josh – even when it isn’t his fault. I’d love to yell at my mom, particularly today, but that whole “she’s the fucking landlord and oh wait I’m not paying rent right now” bullshit kind of keeps me from doing that.

I love your Angryface Monster. He’s the shit.

Here’s my advice about the job thing – do what you love and the money will follow. You’ll probably be broke until the money catches up, but life is way too short to be stuck working a job that can best be described as “soul sucking.”

Yeah. Well, it’s not always so bad. Partly it’s just – boring, and I don’t have a lot of direction. I need to work on that. Problem with part time is losing insurance and retirement. That’s something I hadn’t thought of before. Also I can’t forget that thus far I’ve been able to get away with Internet a lot here. Cause it looks like you’re working.

I haz an angry faced monster (or maybe it’s a possum), which I always unleash whenever I feel him lingering. I do not believe in bottling up anger and rage… let it out of your system, and you will feel a lot better and not end up becoming a mass murderer…

True story… you know those little Renuzit air freshener cones? The week before Xmas ten years ago, our stupid Mecca decided it was going to stay open 24 hours… which meant my overnight crew now had to take our lunches and breaks in shifts. I got stuck with just a few others having to unload pallets off a truck while the rest of the crew was at lunch. I was already plenty busy on the floor, the backroom was a freaking mess, and the usual poor loading job done by our warehouse had the merchandise falling off the pallets all over the place as we pulled them off. After the umpteenth time crap tumbled off a pallet I was pulling, the stress of the whole situation had finally gotten me to the point of snapping. One of the cases of Renuzits had fallen off and broken open… spilling the stupidass cones all over the place… so I picked one up and threw a fastball for a strike against a nearby pallet of soda. That Renuzit (It was Tropical Melon, I believe) exploded all over the damn place! The guys got a good laugh out of the scene, it made me feel a little better, and it only cost my employer 97 cents….

MMMM! Exploding tropical melon is the best! Working in a warehouse, I bet you’ve seen some impressive exploding retail products (from experience, I can attest that exploding commercial products are to be avoided – too big a bang; but exploding retail products are the best). We had a cowboy forklift driver one time who left his boom up while entering a tunnel (for those who are non-warehouse rats: “Boom” is the steel rails that extend upward from a forklift that allows pallets that are high in the air to be picked up by the forks. And a “tunnel” is racking that is between two rows and above a travel lane that forklifts travel underneath and allows storage of extra product ). The racking had stored pallets of 1 lb honey in glass jars. Bwahahaha! One full pallet fell on the roof cage (a set of steel bars over the forklift driver that prevents injury from flying objects or roll over) and split apart . Dozens of glass jars exploded on the cage and rained honey and glass shards down on the cowboy. He had a helmet and safety glasses on but the honey got into every orfice and drenched him. This earned him the nick name ‘Sweet-thang’ and a suspension (after he cleaned up the mess). That nick name haunted hm for years. Ha! Once we all finished (or at least slowed down) laughing, we made a rule to just place unbreakables, like paper towels, over the tunnels.

I have no words… except that I want to work with Paul… sounds like my kind of establishment ! =)

Seriously though, have been there, and gave up the cabbage for more free time, which I spent in scuba gear chasing Moray eels… best decision I ever made ! =) Of course, that was life before my foxling came, and knowing insurance is a real concern, I would have to think twice…

Is there a mildly-irritating medium ? I can picture you at a college, somewhere artsy… you are too cool to put up with much crap for long. =) Good luck, Alice !

Lol, I actually am at a college, a college library, and really it is a good job, I like most of the people I work with, etc. It’s just that I hate the current project I’m on and I don’t have a lot of set goals which is not too good for me because without direction I do nothing until the very last second. Also there is insurance and retirement and boring crap like that.

PLEASE, if you find such a position, and need a helper, remember me ! =) I always said if I had the chance, I would simply earn PhD’s until they fell out of my ears, and just volunteer at whatever I felt like at the moment. Oh, what I could do with a mountain of cash =)

That sounds like a hard choice – basically choosing between personal satisfaction and financial satisfaction, or something like that. Too bad they can’t always just fit together. I’d say do what will make you happiest because if you’re not happy, then nothing else matters. Maybe that’s when Angryface Monster comes out more?

Maybe. But there’s all that responsibility stuff that comes in. I do need the insurance and the retirement and I have kids and it’s not THAT bad a job. It’s just long and really I would like it if people paid me for doing nothing. I know it works that way in Rainbow Pony Land.

Life really sucks, Alice. I mean it totally, really & truly fucking sucks. There are some glimmers of happiness from time to time – but the other 95% of the time we just have to be tough bitches.

If it makes you feel any better, I love that you used that second picture of my twin from Alice: Madness Returns.
& I think I have an Angryface Monster too. We’ll call him Fred & he looks like a rabbit. & He carries an axe or any other sharp object he can get his fluffy little hands on. Maybe Fred & Angryface can get together and have a tea party. :)

That would be the most awesome tea party ever. And I’ve never played the Alice games but I know the story and I’ve seen people playing it on youtube and holy CRAP it looks bloody and horrible and AWESOME.

I’d say stick where you are. Just because your old boss retired doesn’t mean that your former place of work would be any better to work in. Your current project might be a bit crap, but at least you can get away with using the internet while at work! Plus, as you’ve said, full time means you get certain advantages with insurance etc.

Maybe you could even start – or continue – writing some of your fiction while at work? Then you could get paid to write your first novel, and then get paid again when it sells…

Yeah, well, I want to get paid for giving tennis lessons and blogging. But it’s not a perfect world! ;)

I would love to go back to part-time, but can’t afford to. Meanwhile, I struggled for so many years with a horrendous temper, that I’m happy to say I spend a whole lot less energy on anger than I ever did before. Don’t get me wrong, I still ‘give a good talking to’ to the horrific drivers on the commute, and I spend plenty of energy complaining about the back-yard asshat. Other than that, I’m learning to breathe deep and relax. I like my life a whole lot better now. :)